


Endgame

by inlovewithnight



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-10
Updated: 2010-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 04:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	Endgame

_Then I saw the morning sky:  
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;  
The world, it was the old world yet,  
I was I, my things were wet,  
And nothing now remained to do  
But begin the game anew._  
~"Terence, this is stupid stuff" A.E. Housman

The lights come up.

When the lights come up they know it's over, and that they have, perhaps, twenty minutes before it begins again. It's like a play, Elizabeth thinks sometimes, remembering trips to the theater with Simon, remembering the up and down of the curtains and the dim and bright of the lights. This is a play, all the city's a stage, and now the lights are up and they're at intermission.

She's the queen, a carved chess-piece with a crown and, because there is no king, the object of the endgame. She gathers her players around her for a headcount, pawns all. She had knights, once-- she remembers having knights-- but they were eliminated rounds and rounds ago. Rooks fell from the sky like their namesake and its son (she remembers when she was a girl and learned that wings of wax wouldn't fly), and there were never any bishops here. This city is not holy ground.

The city had her own holiness, once, or so they thought, ancient grace divine; but that's all long gone. Before the first act, that was gone.

_Is it a **game** or a **play**?_, she wonders, telling herself sharply to stop mixing her metaphors. _You'll never get an A in rhetoric that way._

"Dr. Weir? Dr. Weir?" Gentle babbling pawn-voices. She's done her headcount and she's done with them. Six pawns remain. Some of them have guns and dress like soldiers, but they're pawns, all right, not knights at all. She started this game with three knights, strong and noble and loyal to a fault, and these are _not_ knights, just pawns with delusions of grandeur. She ought to throw them right out of the game, see if they can survive, let them swim for it.

"Elizabeth."

That voice is a bit harder to ignore. Pawn-who-will-not-act-like-a-pawn. Stubborn. Troublesome. Even more so since the knights were taken out of the game. She sighs and looks up and meets the pawn's eyes.

"Yes?"

He's looking at her oddly, solemnly, with concern, and it makes her stomach churn for reasons she can't understand. She suddenly feels, quite strongly, that this pawn shouldn't look at anyone that way. "Yes?" she says again.

He takes her arm and tugs her away from the others, towards a doorway brighter than even the lighted room. "Come on, Elizabeth, I think you need some air."

They step through the doorway and she realizes that it is bright with sun, and they are standing on a balcony, looking out over an endless sea. She turns her face into the wind, and it kisses her with the ocean's spray, drops of water like rain. She blinks once, twice, steps closer to the railing. He squeezes her hand.

"Oh," she says, thoughtfully.

"Come on, Elizabeth," he says, a bit impatiently, and that feels better to her stomach, that this pawn doesn't suffer fools. And no, not a pawn at all, a name, another--

"Rodney," she says, turning to look at him, and he smiles.

"Yes! Rodney. Good." He nods, grabs her shoulders, shakes her gently. "Good! That was two and a half minutes faster than last time. I think it might be the sunlight that does it."

"We don't have much time," she says, staring at him. "They'll be back soon. Another round."

"I know, I know. Which is why I had to snap you out it, get your head back, so we can come up with a plan, a strategy, a way to take control of this thing--"

"There's no point, Rodney." She cuts him off as gently as she can manage, but still, his face falls like she's broken his heart, and she can't take that, she can't bear it.

"But Elizabeth, we have to at least try, we can't just..."

She steps close, cradles his face in her hands, covers her mouth with his to stop his words. "There's no point, Rodney," she whispers against his lips when the kiss is done, rubbing her nose against his gently. "They make the rules."

"But Elizabeth..."

She won't hear this. Can't hear it. The time for fighting was rounds and rounds ago, all there is now is the game, the play, the stage, the board being unfolded from its brightly-colored box and laid out with little plastic pieces and a pair of dice. She can feel the sky darkening above them, raindrops falling down to paint streaks along her clothes, and hear the distant rumble of thunder. Or the dice being cast. _Is this chess or Monopoloy, Elizabeth, make up your mind._

She backs him up against a pillar and kisses him again, harder, more firmly. Disobedient pawn he might be, but he is _hers_, and she won't have him fighting when she has decided to play.

"Elizabeth..." he sighs, relaxing in defeat, and she smiles at him. Of all the pieces she has left on the board, she loves him best.

"Dr. Weir, Dr. McKay," someone calls, and they turn to look back through the door into the city. The lights inside are falling dim. "It's starting again," the pawn-with-a-gun says, staring at them dully, appearing not to care that she's holding Rodney's face in his hands, caressing his skin with his fingers. "They'll be here any moment."

She steps back and offers Rodney her hand, and after a moment he takes it, squeezing gently. They walk back into the city palm to palm, the city that used to be theirs and now belongs to the nightmares, ancient ghosts rising up from the underground when the lights fall dark. As they're falling right now.

_Ancient ghosts or Ancient ghosts?_ she wonders briefly, fleetingly, as she feels the terror rise in her blood along with the gathering shadows. She won't have time to answer the question; she never does. Rational thought flees as quickly as the city's lights as the clock runs out on intermission and the game is, once again, in play.


End file.
